Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's state of the city speech on Thursday is devoted largely to educational issues, as he attempts to shape his legacy while rounding the bend of his last term. Here are the highlights of his proposals:

ATTRACT HIGH-QUALITY TEACHERS
The city will pay up to $25,000 in student loans for college graduates who finish at the top quartile of their college class. The money would be paid in installments of up to $5,000 a year, for a maximum of $25,000 at the end of five years of teaching service.

RETAIN TEACHERS
Teachers who are rated "highly effective" for two consecutive years will receive a $20,000 raise per year. The measure puts pressure on the unions to compromise on the parameters of a new, four-tiered evaluation system to rate teachers and principals in public schools.

EVALUATE TEACHERS
Drawing on a provision of the teachers' contract, the city will form school-based committees to evaluate teachers based on their performance in the classroom. The contract allows up to 50 percent of the teachers to be replaced under this arrangement. For the city, it is a bid to restore the roughly $60 million in federal grants for 33 struggling schools, which the state suspended in New York City and nine other school districts because they failed to reach a compromise with their unions over the parameters of an evaluation system for the teachers and principals working in those schools. The evaluation system is a requirement of the grants.

MORE SCHOOLS, MORE CHOICES
The city will continue its charge to replace large, failing schools with smaller schools by phasing out another 25 schools this year and opening 100 new schools -- including 50 new charter schools -- over the next two years. The city has asked charter operators Mr. Bloomberg defined as "our most successful" to expedite their expansion plans and will move to recruit similar networks that do not have a presence in New York.

COLLEGE AND CAREERS
The city will open at least 12 new career and technical schools and programs within the next two years, offering training in skills aligned with the demands of the global economy, in areas including computer science and health care. It will give extra money, from private sources, to help 40 schools that have shown success graduating young black and Latino men. (The schools have not yet been selected.) It will also expand partnerships between schools and private companies, similar to a partnership with IBM that led to the opening this year of the Pathways in Technology Early College High School in Brooklyn.

FINANCIAL AID
Under a partnership with the Obama administration, the city will help high school graduates who would have qualified for federal financial aid, but did not apply, to turn in their applications. It also intends to lead the charge for passage of the New York State Dream Act, which would give qualified high school graduates who are illegal immigrants to apply for state-sponsored college loans, grants and scholarships.

Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott wrote a letter to Dr. John B. King Jr., the state education commissioner, outlining a proposal to convert 27 of the 33 struggling schools, now currently either "transformation" or "restart" schools, into federal "turnaround" schools. The full letter is below.
January 12, 2012

Dr. John B. King, Jr., Commissioner
New York State Education Department
89 Washington Avenue
Albany, New York 12234

Dear Commissioner King,
As a condition of receiving School Improvement Grant (SIG) funding for the federal Transformation and Restart models, the New York State Education Department (SED) made clear that the City and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) must agree by January 1, 2012 to implement a comprehensive and meaningful teacher evaluation
system in New York City’s 33 Transformation and Restart schools.
We had hoped that after months of intense negotiations we could reach an agreement with the UFT on a teacher evaluation system that would give principals the ability to dramatically improve teacher quality in their schools. However, as you know, despite discussions over the past five months, we did not reach a final agreement with the UFT by the deadline. Nearly every step of the way, the UFT insisted on conditions that I
believe would undercut real accountability.
For example, the UFT wants an outside arbitrator to hear appeals of teachers who receive a rating of ineffective or developing. This would be a major departure from our current appeals process, and stems from the UFT’s dissatisfaction with the low-rate at which teachers’ “Unsatisfactory” ratings are currently overturned during appeals. However, if one considers the fact that less than 2% of all teachers are u-rated in a given year, it is
unsurprising that the overwhelming majority of those would be upheld upon appeal.
Ultimately, the UFT was insisting on conditions that contradict the intent of the law and the State’s guidance by adding a burdensome new procedural layer designed to keep ineffective teachers in the classroom. In your letter sent on January 3, 2012, you indicated that because we had not reached an agreement with the UFT, SED was suspending our School Improvement Grant funding for the 33 Transformation and Restart schools. Though we regret the suspension of $58 million in critical funding for some of the City’s highest-need schools, we understand
your rationale. We cannot, however, accept the consequences. The challenges in these schools are too great, and the need to overcome those challenges is too urgent, to not take immediate action.
Given their current circumstances, and in response to your letter, we have assessed the specific needs of each of our Transformation and Restart schools and developed a proposed plan that would allow us to maximize the improvement work underway in these schools. In summary, we are proposing to:
o Convert 13 Transformation schools to Turnaround; and
o Convert 14 Restart schools to Turnaround while allowing them to maintain their relationships with their EPOs.
Furthermore, we are informing you that we will be using existing funding from non-SIG sources for the remainder of the year to support reforms in place at six schools that are currently in Transformation. Two of these schools have already been proposed for phase out. Two of these schools have deep reforms underway and thus we do not want to implement a different strategy in these schools at this time. And for performance-based reasons, we will not be pursuing Turnaround in two schools currently implementing the Transformation model.
As a requirement of the Turnaround model, the Department is committing in these schools to measure and screen existing staff using rigorous, school-based competencies, and to re-hire a significant portion of them using this criteria. We believe that this requirement is achievable within the DOE’s current collective bargaining agreement with the UFT.
In addition, consistent with Turnaround requirements, these schools will implement instructional and structural reforms which will include a new mission and vision for student success and faculty excellence; a new curriculum and instructional model; academic supports for serving high-needs students; professional development plans for
staff; and structural reforms to create productive learning environments for students.
The DOE’s goal is to ensure that we have the best teachers in our classrooms, since an effective teacher is the key school-based lever of student success. When we originally put these schools into Transformation and Restart, we did so with the belief that we would reach an agreement with the UFT on a teacher evaluation system.
But without an agreement with the UFT, we are obligated to advocate for an alternative approach to ensure that every school is getting the job done for students. We believe that Turnaround provides an aggressive framework to raise the bar for students in our PLA schools.
Finally, because we believe in Turnaround as a powerful lever for change, we are informing you of our intent to apply for Turnaround at six additional PLA schools that are not undergoing a SIG model in the current school year. Therefore, we will be applying to implement Turnaround in a total of 33 schools.
My staff will be following up with your office to further discuss New York City’s plan. We will also be sending you an addendum to this letter that provides a snapshot of the improvement work underway at these schools and our rationale for why we believe you should approve our plan. In addition, we are prepared to submit a full proposal consistent with SED requirements and guidance.
I look forward to speaking with you further.

Sincerely,

Dennis M. Walcott
Chancellor

On Thursday, President Obama put forth a bold new plan for higher education with the goal of increasing college affordability by linking federal aid to education outcomes.

The proposals call for a new college rating system to be put in place before 2015, which would rank schools according to tuition, graduation rates, debt and earnings of graduates. It would also take into account the percentage of lower-income students who attend. This would be a significant disruption to the current U.S. news ranking system, that though somewhat maligned is largely relied upon.

The new ratings would be directly tied to financial aid so that those on top would get more affordable loans and larger federal grants. The plan also calls on colleges to disburse student aid over the course of a semester, rather than as a lump sum at the start.

President Obama kicked off an unveiling of the plan in a campaign-style two day bus trip that began yesterday at the University of Buffalo.

“Higher education cannot be a luxury," said President Obama. "It's an economic imperative. Every American family should be able to afford to get it."

The only thing standing in the way of President Obama’s idea is Congress—and Congressional approval has stopped his efforts before. President Obama acknowledged this potential push back in his visit to the University of Buffalo.

“These reforms won't be popular with everybody, especially those who are making out just fine under the current system," he said.

But in a time where the average borrower graduates with more than $26,000 in debt and faces an uncertain job market, affordability ranks high for many young people.

President Obama is wrapping up his tour today with a town hall visit to the SUNY Binghamton University, and a final stop at Lackawanna College in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Kathryn Dura will be a senior at Binghamton High School this year. She’s already began the college search, and like every young person debt, jobs and finding a school that she likes are on her mind. Kathryn is joined by her father Dr. Paul Dura.

Now that most college application deadlines have passed, applicants and their families should be sure to obtain and complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. It is the go-to form to apply for federal and state student grants, as well as loans and work-study programs.

For non-federal financial aid, including from the colleges and universities themselves, families should also educate themselves about the CSS/Financial Aid Profile, a service of the College Board used by nearly 400 institutions and scholarship programs.

Here are some tips for students and their families to bear in mind as they embark on this complex, but often critical, aspect of the process of making college as affordable as possible:

Pay very careful attention to deadlines. You can hurt your chances of getting funding if you miss financial aid deadlines. Every college that receives federal funding, the vast majority of colleges in the US, requires the FAFSA. Some also require the CSS Profile or institutional-specific forms. Be sure to check each college’s website for their specific requirements and deadlines.

Do not wait until you’ve been admitted to a college to apply for aid. Often these are parallel processes that happen independent of each other.

Be sure to use the correct website for the FAFSA, as established by the United States Department of Education, and not some that look official but are not. The main FAFSA site is very helpful , most questions should be answered here. Also, avoid anyone or any website that asks you to pay to complete or submit the FAFSA. This is a free form and process.

As a credible, supplemental resource, we recommend the website Fastweb.com, which also has a straightforward video that walks you through the FAFSA as well.  Another helpful video, from the University of California at Santa Barbara, is here.

Get a PIN for the FAFSA right now.If you do not already have one, click here to obtain one.

Have all your financial information and documents ready before you get started:

•  Your Social Security Number
•  Your Alien Registration Number (if you are not a U.S. citizen)
•  Your most recent federal income tax returns, W-2s, and other records of money earned. (Note: You may be able to transfer your federal tax  return information into your FAFSA using the IRS Data Retrieval Tool.)
•  Bank statements and records of investments (if applicable)
•  Records of untaxed income (if applicable)

If you are challenged by completing the FAFSA because of unusual circumstances (for example: incarcerated parents, students in the foster system, parent location unknown), be sure to check out this guidance for navigating these and other circumstances. You can also reach out to your colleges’ financial aid offices for their advice as well.

For students with divorced parents, the parent with whom the student resides the majority of time should complete the FAFSA.

Assets like retirement funds and home equity are not taken into consideration with the FAFSA, but some colleges may ask for this information on supplemental forms.

When asked to list the colleges to which you are sending the FAFSA, be sure to do so in alphabetical order, not in order of preference.

Finally, remember that colleges see paying for college as the family’s responsibility primarily. They will work in partnership to help you pay, but families should not rely on colleges to provide enough money to cover for the estimated full cost of attendance, which may include room and board, meals, books and transportation to and from home.

Chances are good that applicants will be asked to take on some student and/or parent loans. While loans aren’t bad, necessarily, families should carefully consider how much loan debt will be accrued over a student’s college and graduate school educations – and the income (and amount of time) that will be required to meet those obligations following graduation.

Canada’s middle class is now wealthier than ours. David Leonhardt of The New York Times explains the analysis (and the new Times data platform). Plus: how to understand your college financial aid letter; sleep through the life cycle; and news from the Supreme Court.

Jacques Steinberg, senior vice president with Say Yes to Education, a national non-profit organization, and author of The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College, offers insight and advice for H.S. seniors and their parents facing the May 1 deadline to commit to a college choice -- including what factors to weigh in the decision, navigating financial aid and whether "double depositing" is fair play.

In the next school year, New York University will extend its financial aid program to New Yorkers, regardless of their immigration status. Potential recipients just have to fill out a supplemental form — the "Undocumented Student Financial Aid Application"— to prove they've lived in the state for at least three years.

NYU senior Marco Galaviz Luna didn't have that option back when he applied. "Once you got in, you would have to explain to the university that you were undocumented and that you don't qualify for financial aid," he said. "And you kind of almost have to beg for money." He said the university told him "there's nothing for you so... sorry." But he said he got lucky: within a year of applying, he received his green card, so he qualified for federal, state, and NYU aid.

Students who've entered New York illegally can apply for private scholarships or appeal to universities, but NYU's new formalized process is unique. Luna is now a senior, and during his time at NYU, he co-founded the immigrant activist group, the NYU Dream Team, and fought for the reform announced this week.

The university's vice president for enrollment management MJ Knoll-Finn said it's important to note the program is a one-year pilot. She said the school will have to gauge the demand for the program and decide whether NYU aid is a viable option for undocumented students who still won't have access to state or federal aid.

"We aren't sure how many will apply, be admitted and be participating in this to know how much... budget money will be needed," Knoll-Finn said. "It's the good and bad of a pilot; it's why we started with just New York." 

Knoll-Finn said the university will wait a year to see if it has the ability to "support these kids in the long run."

Brayan Sanchez was accepted to a handful of colleges, some in New York City and some elsewhere in the state. As the first member of his family to attend college, distance was a key factor in deciding where to enroll.

Other things that mattered? Financial aid was a big consideration. And then there was the intangible feeling of the place.

"I caught a feel of the campus and, like, the school itself, and I see myself there for four years," said Sanchez, a senior at Civic Leadership Academy in Queens. 

Yesenia Garcia-Fortuna is a college program manager at the Boys Club of New York where Sanchez participates in college-support programs and tutors younger kids in math. She said she always includes the family in the college application process, and tries to allay people's fears about the costs.

"A lot of folks go into this process not understanding what access there is to funds out there," she said. "I think sometimes families discount schools thinking they're not going to be able to afford the sticker price."

Sanchez, for one, is taking advantage of the Educational Opportunity Program offered by the State University of New York. 

The price tag for colleges and universities has been steadily on the rise. For the 2014–2015 academic year, College Board reports that, on average, a "moderate" college budget for an in-state public college falls at about $23,410, while a "moderate" budget for a private college comes in at around $46,272.

That means that student debt is also on the rise—about three-quarters of students from private, non-profit colleges graduate with debt, and that number jumps to about 88 percent for students at for-profit colleges. On average, graduates are walking away from college with $29,400 in debt, according to figures from 2012.  

All this week, you've been sending us your questions about paying for college, how to budget and save, what loans to take out, and the best ways to think about paying off student debt. We put your questions to Beth Kobliner, author of "Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance in Your Twenties and Thirties." Kobliner is also a member of the President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability for Young Americans, and is writing a new book, "Make Your Kid a Money Genius (Even If You're Not)."

Here, Kobliner answers some of the most common college cost questions.

1. How should I start saving for college?

Kobliner says that a 529 college savings plan is a great way to save. This savings plan is designed to help families set aside funds for future college costs.

According to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), “Earnings in 529 plans are not subject to federal tax, and in most cases, state tax, so long as you use withdrawals for eligible college expenses, such as tuition and room and board. However, if you withdraw money from a 529 plan and do not use it on an eligible college expense, you generally will be subject to income tax and an additional 10 percent  federal tax penalty on earnings.”

Though an individual has money in a 529 college savings account, students and families can still apply for financial aid, including low-cost federal student loans, though Kobliner does not recommend “borrowing a huge amount.”

Additionally, the  Khan Academy, a non-profit educational organization, put together a series of great videos on the topic of college admissions. Check out Kobliner’s—one is on the various repayment plans and the other offering guidance for parents.

2. How much will my family be expected to pay?

Savings will vary by individual, but check out the FAFSA4caster at fafsa.gov. It’ll help you get a rough sense of your Estimated Family Contribution (EFC)—the figure that colleges use to determine how much financial aid you’ll get. It’s only a ballpark estimate, and you’ll find that some schools will be more stingy and some will be more generous. Still, it’s a good place to start to figure out how much you or your children might have to pay for college.

Kobliner also recommends that students and families consider their options—she says that attending a community college for two years and then transferring to a four year, in-state public college or university can do wonders to keep educational costs down.

Families should begin talking with their children about their realistic options surrounding college affordability as early as ninth grade, adds Kobliner.

3. I just graduated and don't even know what I owe.

The average student graduates with about $30,000 in student loan debt. Go to the National Student Loan Data System (nslds.ed.gov), sponsored by the Department of Education, to learn what student loans you have, how much you owe, and what company you need to pay—known as the loan servicer.

4. What if I can’t pay back my federal student loans?

“You have to pay back your loans,” says Kobliner. “If there’s some problem you’re having, there are options.”

The standard repayment plan requires you to pay off your loans over 10 years. But there are a range of plans that allow you to stretch out your payments over a much longer time period (this will reduce your monthly payments, but increase the total interest you'll pay), or enable you to have your monthly payments determined as a percentage of your income.

“Some of these [repayment] plans, the way it works with the income contingent ones in particular, after a certain number of years your debt is totally forgiven,” she says.

If you do default on your student loans, it could affect your credit in the long-term and make it difficult for you to borrow money in the future. To find out which repayment plan is best for you, check out the Repayment Estimator at studentaid.gov/repayment-estimator.

Listen to the audio player above to hear Kobliner answer more of your questions.

Beth Kobliner is the author of The New York Times bestseller Get a Financial Life, and is currently writing a new book, Make Your Kid a Money Genius (Even If You’re Not), to be published by Simon & Schuster. She is a member of the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability for Young Americans. Visit her at bethkobliner.com, follow her on Twitter, and like her on Facebook.

As the presidential candidates roll out plans to help people pay for college, the Federal Reserve released a study that found a correlation between tuition hikes and federal loans its students receive. But other studies have found conflicting evidence. Libby Nelson, education reporter at Vox, explains what we know and what we don't about whether federal aid drives up the cost of tuition.

The federal government recently released a treasure trove of data on the nation's colleges and universities. It's called the College Scorecard, and it enables students and families to rank colleges based on several factors including price, estimated earnings after graduation and student debt.

But like any massive data dump, it can be overwhelming. That's why we spoke with Robert Kelchen, an assistant professor of higher education at Seton Hall, and Corbin Campbell, an assistant professor of higher education at Teachers College Columbia University, about five things they thought you should pay attention to when combing the data, and building your own lists.

Cost. The average cost you see for each school is only for students receiving financial aid. So if the annual cost is listed at $22,000, that's how much students getting financial aid can expect to pay on average. That number can range tremendously among private schools, depending on how generous they are with their endowments. Pro Publica took a deep dive comparing Columbia University and New York University, and found financial-aid students pay an average of $8,086 per year at Columbia ($8.2 billion endowment) compared to $25,441 at NYU ($3.5 billion endowment)

Graduation Rates. "All students think they are going to complete college but they won't all complete," said Kelchen. Colleges with really low graduation rates are obviously a red flag. But keep in mind that those with really high graduation rates might be "only taking students who are likely to succeed." 

Earnings. These salaries refer to what people are making 10 years after starting college. Again, our experts advise to proceed with caution. "Remember that the earnings data are both for most people who complete college and people who don't," said Kelchen, meaning if you see an average annual salary of $50,000 also look at the school's graduation rate. If it's low, that may mean the school is including dropouts who can be less successful on average (aside from people like Bill Gates).

Average salaries at a school also include different majors, which can vary tremendously at a liberal arts institution. This could explain why the average salary of those leaving Yale is lower than those leaving the Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences ($66,000 per year versus $110,000). Likewise, students who attend prestigious music and art schools have lower average salaries than those who attend engineering and medical programs.

This is why Campbell warns against paying too much attention to earnings. "Higher education isn't just sort of a certification that you can bring to an employer. It's also changing minds and changing the way students think," she said. 

Better than High School Grads? Everyone talks about how a high school diploma is practically worthless these days. The scorecard tells you what percentage of those who attended each college make more money than the average high school graduate, whose annual earnings six years later after getting a diploma are $25,000. It compares that $25,000 average that to what students from each school make 10 years after they start. "We want that number to be close to 100 percent [higher]," said Kelchen, to determine whether the college is doing part of its job. 

Loan Repayment Rate: You can see what percent of students who attended each school are able to pay more than just the interest on their loans within three years. Kelchen said this is very useful. "It doesn't mean they make a lot of money, but they're able to make enough to repay their debt, at least in part."

Academics probing the raw data have been pulling out other interesting findings. Kelchen looked at the percentage of students at each school who are the first in their families to go to college. He shared his findings for the tri-state area: at CUNY's campuses, 40 to 50 percent of students are first-generation, compared to 12.6 percent at Bard, almost 20 percent at Fordham and 25 percent at Princeton.

We're sure to see many more interesting facts about our nation's colleges as the experts continue wading through the federal data. Share with us what you're finding, in the comments below or on Twitter @schoolbook. 

There are a lot of myths about who is and who isn't entitled to financial aid. And in the New York City public schools, there typically aren't enough people to help high school students navigate the complicated process.

To help clear some things up, WNYC spoke with Andrea Soonachan, senior director of college and career planning in the Department of Education. This is an excerpted interview.

Q: New York State's deadline is June 30. Why are you encouraging students to finish their financial aid applications in February?

A: FAFSA is open through the year, once it opens, but many schools (including CUNY) offer resources, such as work-study opportunities, on a first-come, first-served basis.

And when they send out their acceptance notices, starting in April, they're trying to build a class that has a balance of students and takes into account what their reserves are around financial aid. So the sooner the better, basically, for kids and families.

Q: Do all city high schools now have college planning offices and advisors?

A: We call them college advisors. And the majority of high schools have them. All high schools have a guidance counselor. But then the culture of schools varies widely, so lots of schools have advisory systems where they are doing small group work with teachers and with guidance counselors. Some schools have college offices led by a college advisor. All schools have a main point of contact, who leads the college work.

Q: It must be overwhelming. How do they manage so many students?

A: We've really focused over the last three or four years on scaling up the capacity of multiple adults in every high school to do this work, not pushing the burden heavily on one person who can somehow do that for hundreds of kids.

But 80 percent of all of our high schools have at least one trained staff person. About 50 percent have multiple, many multiple people trained. So we've got about 1500 people at this point who have been trained through that initiative. And we continue to roll that out and push that idea of having lots of people in your building do that work.

Q: What training do they need? Can any Social Studies or English teacher do this on the side?

A: Yes. Absolutely. Our six-day training [over the fall and winter] spends a full day on building a good college list, has two full days on financial aid where they walk line-by-line through what is on the FAFSA, and how do you answer tricky questions like which parent to put where. And a full day of evaluating the financial aid packages, a whole day on working with immigrant students.

Q: What are the most common questions that come up?

A: 'Which parent do I put on the FAFSA and what if I don't live with either parent?' Decoupling legal guardianship from who the FAFSA form considers who you should put on there, and decoupling the dependency on the tax form from the FAFSA form.

For students who are undocumented, we really made a big push around making sure staff are informed. What are kids' opportunities within their various statuses? To determine if the kid is truly undocumented and not eligible for federal aid. [There are also DREAM scholarships for undocumented students]

We have a live "Ask an Advisor" function on our NYC College Line website. There is also a FAFSA guide and the department's main financial aid page can also be translated into multiple languages. 

Q: What stories you hear from the college planners about students and their issues?

A: Kids have myths and fears that they're not eligible for aid when they are, or it's not worth filling this out or it can be a lot more complicated than it is. Or myths like, 'I have to wait for my parents to complete their taxes from this year.'

Q: Why don't students think they are eligible for financial aid? More than three quarters of city students qualify for free lunch.

A: Money is hard for lots of kids and grown-ups to grasp. I think they don't have an understanding of, like, what's the average Pell grant. Kids who pretty much have what they need every day, they go to school and have a loving and supportive family, aren't thinking of themselves as low income. Especially if everyone around you is pretty much at the same level.

Q: The Department of Education has a new tool for tracking students when they apply for college aid. How does that work?

A: We launched a FAFSA completion data portal with the state, which means that staff can log into the state portal and see, in real time, data updated each night and see the completion status of their students. They can see who's completed or who's not completed with flags and go back to that kid and say you're missing this line or something is in error here.

At a time when government funding of public universities is at an all-time low, shifting the cost burden onto students and families, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson explains why maintaining affordable higher education is vital to the survival and success of our democracy in, “Save Our Public Universities: In Defense of America’s Best Idea,” her cover story for the March issue of Harper's magazine. 

Idaysy Briones, left, gets help filling out a federal financial aid form from fellow Valencia College student and “financial learning ambassador,” Karina Concepción. Photo by Timothy Pratt/ Hechinger Report

Idaysy Briones sat next to Karina Concepción in a room full of 19- and 20-year-olds, somehow able to concentrate on the federal financial aid form on the computer screen in front of her as cell phones buzzed and talk turned to weekend plans, in English and Spanish.

For Briones, the first in her household to go to college, filling out the federal government’s form that determines student eligibility for grants and other financial help took about an hour with Concepción’s help, plus several calls home for additional information.

But it was easier here than if she had tried to do it herself or with her parents — who helped her fill out the form the year before, her first at Valencia — or a financial aid advisor, she said. “My parents would ask me, ‘You don’t know the answer to this?’” That was more stressful, she said.

Concepción is one of the financial learning ambassadors at Valencia College in central Florida — students who help fellow students understand the labyrinthine details of paying for college and balancing other life expenses, which many are alarmingly ill-equipped to do.

The idea is simple: “Students would rather listen to someone who’s in their own shoes or in a similar situation tell them about their finances,” said Elizabeth Coogan, senior advisor in the federal student aid office of the U.S. Department of Education.

Related: Tangled process of applying for financial aid deepens college affordability crisis

They also need a lot of help. In a national “financial wellness” survey conducted by Ohio State University, nearly a third of nearly 19,000 college students could correctly answer only zero, one or two out of five financial questions, including ones on take-home pay and credit scores. A separate study by the loan company Sallie Mae found that nearly a quarter of students don’t pay bills on time, nearly half set aside no savings, 40 percent spend more than they have, more than a third don’t read their credit card reports and more than a third don’t pay off their full credit card balance every month.

Nearly 60 percent of students don’t know how long it will take to pay off their loans, more than a third don’t know the interest rates they’re paying, and nearly 60 percent regret taking out as many loans as they did, a survey of graduates by Citizens Bank found.

In yet another survey, by the education technology company Everfi, students reported being less knowledgeable about how to manage money than almost anything else they’re called upon to do in college.

All of this comes at a time when spiraling tuition has driven 41 million people to borrow money for their educations — and when one in four are behind on their repayments or in default, according to the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

“Students are making life-altering financial decisions, with minimum understanding, at a time of maximum distraction,” said Jeff Webster, assistant vice president of research and analytical services at a Texas-based student-loan guarantor called TG.

Not surprisingly, 72 percent of students feel stressed about their finances, and nearly 60 percent worry about having enough money to pay for school, the Ohio State survey reported.

Related: Been accepted into college? Now it’s time to start negotiating for a better price

As college financial aid officers and other administrators seek ways to recruit and retain students  amidst these obstacles, the idea of having students help each other solve financial  problems has been catching on

“Interest is huge” in the concept, said Bryan Ashton, assistant director of student life at Ohio State, which has its own peer-to-peer program called Scarlet and Gray Financial Coaching.

The number of such initiatives has grown to about 50 campuses, he said, and his office fields about 100 inquiries a year about the approach.

The annual National Summit on Collegiate Financial Wellness will include a session on peer-to-peer counseling programs for the first time this year. And a handbook on financial literacy for community college students published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston also highlighted the model.

Many students seem to like it.

On a spring day late in the semester, the bright sky and slight breeze seemed to invite anything but talk of interest rates and loans at Valencia College’s Osceola campus here. But 45 students filed into an auditorium to listen to Cristian Rodríguez and Lance McNeill, two of the college’s 19 financial ambassadors, talk about how to manage their money.

Related: Government data single out schools where low-income students fare worst

In a presentation accompanied by slides and video, the two began by asking their audience to build a foundation for thinking about money by considering the difference between what they want and what they need.

Rodríguez talked about the “neurological effects of shopping.” To get the point across, he asked: “How many of you have tried cocaine?” Perhaps because the room was mostly filled with students, a few hands went up. The “ambassador” explained how dopamine works on the brain, comparing how cocaine and shopping both can trigger it.

He and McNeill also explained how interest rates work for loans and credit cards. Heads nodded.

After about 45 minutes, the students filed out and collected the free pizza that had helped to lure as many of them to the event as possible.

“Hearing savings talks from a younger voice is different” — and easier to listen to — said one, Angelica Bustios. She gets enough federal aid to cover the associate’s degree she’s seeking, she said, but wants to transfer after that to the University of Central Florida, which will cost more.

“I need to learn to save … and not go for my wants instead of my needs,” Bustios said.

Financial literacy experts said peer-to-peer counseling offers an alternative to the way many young people learn about complex financial matters: online.

Related: Some investors, universities see a return in fronting students’ tuition

“Having in-person advising is key,” said Rory O’Sullivan, deputy director of Young Invincibles, a Washington, D.C.-based policy and youth-advocacy organization.  “You’re not going to find this kind of information in 140 characters.”

The programs help universities and colleges, too. For one, schools are looking to  lower loan default rates that reflect poorly on them, and students’ increased financial knowledge may help with this issue. The peer counselors are also cheaper than hiring full-time professional advisors. Some programs, like the one at Ohio State, are run on a volunteer basis; at Valencia, the financial ambassadors are paid from federal work-study money. And the University of South Florida compensates its student counselors up to $11 an hour.

“It’s making the best of limited resources,” Coogan said.

Whether or not this works is still unclear. Since the idea is still new, several schools said they haven’t yet gathered information on outcomes and data is scarce.

A survey of students before and after their peer counseling sessions at Ohio State showed “an increase in awareness of their current financial situation, an awareness of debt, and that stress might also go up,” said Ashton.

At Valencia, the student loan default rate has dropped from 20.3 percent in 2011, when the financial ambassadors began their work, to 14.9 percent in 2013, the most recent year for which figures are available, said Ilia Cordero, assistant director of financial aid services. It’s not possible to say whether that improvement is entirely due to the program, Cordero said.

“We’re challenged by a lack of hard data on what is working” with financial literacy programs, Coogan said. But she said she still considers the idea among “best practices.”

Back at Valencia, Idaysy Briones offered her own take on the value of getting help from her fellow student.

“She was more calm, and you feel more comfortable because she knows what you’re going through,” Briones said. “Also, she’s Latino. If I didn’t know how to say something, I could say it in Spanish.”

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Read more about higher education.

The post Can students improve financial management with help from peers? appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

According to a new report, college is less affordable now than it was before the economic downturn, and student financial aid no longer is enough to fill the gap. Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images.

The converging trends of falling state investment, rising tuition, and stagnant incomes has finally pushed higher education out of the grasp of low- and middle-income Americans, even at community colleges, a new report contends.

College is less affordable now, when adjusted for inflation, than it was before the economic downturn, student financial aid no longer is enough to fill the gap, and low- and middle-income families already are having trouble making ends meet just to cover living expenses, the report said.

Related: The rich-poor divide on America’s college campuses is getting wider, fast

“If you’re making $10,000 to $30,000 a year, and you need 10 percent to 15 percent of family income to attend community college, it’s just not going to happen,” said Joni Finney, director of the Institute for Research on Higher Education at the University of Pennsylvania and coauthor of the study.

The cost of living in general and of college in particular has increased for many low- and middle-income families while wages have largely stagnated over the past few decades, and per-student state investment in public education continues to lag pre-recession levels, the report said.

Even at community colleges, most full-time, low-income students would need to work more than 20 hours a week to afford their educations—a workload experts say makes it all but impossible for them to successfully complete a degree.

Related: Colleges that pledged to help poor families have been doing the opposite, new figures show

The result is that far fewer low- and middle-income students will enroll in college at a time when the country has set a goal of producing more degree-holders to stay competitive with international economic rivals.

While policy leaders “talk passionately about wanting to level the playing field,” their funding commitments haven’t aligned with the goal of helping needy students, the study said. “Unless we make college affordable for people of all financial means, opportunity through higher education will be a false promise.”

Unlike other attempts to analyze college affordability, the report—a joint effort of the Higher Education Policy Institute, Vanderbilt University and the University of Pennsylvania—examined tuition and cost-of-living expenses, and compared those to the typical state and federal aid given to students who aren’t well off.

Between 2008 and 2013, the last period for which the information is available, 15 states lowered the full-time cost of attending community college. Four-year public universities became more affordable in six states.

But affordability across all types of colleges and universities declined in 45 states.

 Related: States moving college scholarship money away from the poor, to the wealthy and middle class

Families of students at four-year public universities and colleges in high-population states including Illinois, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania now pay the equivalent of 35 percent or more of their annual incomes to afford school. In Massachusetts and Virginia, the family of a typical student is charged the equivalent of 32 percent of its annual income.

Attending community colleges in many states accounts for around a fifth of students’ family incomes, on average.

Typical college expenses in 12 states are low enough so that community-college students could afford the cost of attendance by working 20 hours or less: Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia.

“Where you grow up can determine your opportunities for higher education,” the authors write. “College costs, available aid, and institutional options vary dramatically by state, sometimes within the same region.”

Related: Government data single out schools where low-income students fare worst

Low-income and middle-class families are feeling the financial squeeze even before contending with tuition.

Federal data show that annual expenses already exceed annual incomes of families earning less than $50,000. Even households earning between $50,000 and $69,000 spend an average of 87 percent of their wages on typical purchases, making it hard to save for college.

“This has been happening slowly, over time, since the early 1990s,” Finney said in an interview. “When the state abdicates responsibility for public policies related to affordability, it disproportionately hurts low- and middle-income families.”

How to fix this is another question, particularly as universities warn of even deeper financial problems.

“Absent any kind of state and federal policy interventions, these trends will only escalate,” Finney said.

And while some states, such as Tennessee and California, have worked to keep tuition low—especially for community college students—tuition consumes only a third of what students have to pay. Fees, books, supplies, food, and housing add substantially to that.

Meanwhile, higher-income families have come to enjoy increased proportions of states’ financial aid.

While the amount of need-based state financial aid for students at four-year public universities and colleges has barely budged between 1996 and 2012, state financial aid for high-income students at those institutions jumped 450 percent, the report said.

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Read more about higher education.

The post Affordable options for college students are disappearing fast appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Coming up on today's show:

• NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio takes calls from listeners and discusses the latest city news.
• Back before the debate over transgender people and bathrooms became the political firestorm it is right now, the bathroom was still a place of great emotional and social contention for trans individuals. Meredith Russo shares her personal story of switching bathrooms while transitioning and the backlash she faced.
• On #30Issues, we continue our conversation about the cost of college by looking at each of the candidates' proposals on college debt with NPR's Anya Kamenetz.
• Hear about a self-described guerrilla journalist and his failed sting on a prominent donor to Hillary Clinton’s campaign, with The New Yorker's Jane Mayer.
• How do New York City's parks rate on a national level? Here to report: Adrian Benepe, senior vice president and director of City Park Development at The Trust for Public Land and former NYC Parks Department commissioner.

Sara Goldrick-Rab, professor of Higher Education Policy & Sociology at Temple University, and Founder of the Wisconsin HOPE Lab, a translational research laboratory seeking ways to make college more affordable, talks about her book Playing the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream. She conducted a study of 3,000 young adults who entered public colleges and universities in Wisconsin in 2008 with the support of federal aid and Pell Grants, and found countless instances of students not completing their degrees due to tuition costs, and students graduating without jobs - and thousands of dollars in debt.

Event: Sara Goldrick-Rab will be giving a talk at CUNY Graduate Center (365 5th Avenue b/w E. 34th & 35th Street) on Wednesday, September 28th, at 6 p.m. 

Watch Video | Listen to the Audio

HARI SREENIVASAN: For high school seniors around the country and their families, it’s the season to think about college applications and costs. A key to all of it, of course, is, what kind of financial aid can they receive? It’s even more crucial for low- and middle-income students who may be leaving thousands of potential dollars on the table each year.

Starting this weekend, there are important changes for a student filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, also known as FAFSA.

For one thing, they will be able to fill it out months earlier, in the hopes of getting information as they try to choose a school.

Let’s fill in the picture.

Kim Cook is the executive director of the National College Access Network, which works closely on these issues.

So, first, what’s the significance of what’s happening this weekend?

KIM COOK, Executive Director, National College Access Network: It’s tremendous.

Right now, over 1.4 million students left $2.7 billion in financial aid on the table by not completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. So, these changes that will make the form earlier and easier for students are significant in helping many of those low-income students access the money they need to attend college.

HARI SREENIVASAN: And one of the significant complaints was how complex it was, how much information they needed. Now apparently there is a connection between your previous tax filing that you can sort of autopopulate online.

KIM COOK: There is, so that’s called the Internal Revenue Service data retrieval tool in lingo.

What’s significant about these changes that are coming online tomorrow are that more students can more easily transfer that tax information because it’s currently available tax data. In the past, we asked students to transfer the date that really wasn’t available until tax filing deadlines.

But now we’re going back another year to make it more available and easier for students to populate the forms with that income information that is sometimes hard to find.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Now, there is also that gap between when you found out if a school wanted you or not and then another couple of weeks or months to figure out what kind of financial aid you were going to get from them.

KIM COOK: Exactly.

So, because of the filing times that used to be in January, financial aid offices were under the gun to get award applications out to students, so that they could make informed decisions about what kind of aid was available at each particular school, and where they could afford and make that college choice.

More importantly, on the front end, there was a crunch that we asked students to think about which colleges they would apply or go to before they had any sense of their aid eligibility, never mind what they will have now, which is a commitment of federal student aid on the front end, as early as October now, as they go into their college search and application time.

HARI SREENIVASAN: So, this was part of the general disincentive over kind of the burdens of trying to get in, I don’t know how much money I’m going to get, I don’t who is going to accept me, and kind of one competing with the other.

KIM COOK: Right. Right.

So, now we’re giving students an early commitment of at least their federal aid, so a low-income student who receives a Pell Grant and subsidized loans could have up to $11,500 of a commitment as they look around and, A, make the important decision that college is affordable and something for me, and, B, where to go, that I have a commitment of money in my pocket to make this possible.

HARI SREENIVASAN: So, what happens if the colleges just decide to move all of their deadlines up? There’s been some concern, especially for low- and middle-income households, that a deadline creep actually adds a lot of pressure and decreases the amount of completed applications.

KIM COOK: We’re watching carefully in this first year, because that is a concern, that students could have a real crunch to push what used to be a longer process and truncate that process of admissions and financial aid into the same three months.

The good news is, regardless of how that does play out this year, the May 1 commitment date holds steady. So, students could have that information earlier, but they can’t be pressured to commit to an aid package before May 1.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Now, you said in the beginning, but it’s kind of staggering to think about $2 billion left on the table.

How many students start this process and don’t finish?

KIM COOK: We’re still trying to get some of that data.

Right now, we know how many students don’t complete. So, 45 — only 45 percent of high school seniors complete a FAFSA by their high school graduation. Some continue to complete it after high school graduation as well. But that’s still a staggering number, when you consider that the FAFSA is the ultimate predictor of whether a student will go on to enroll in college, with 90 percent of those completing a FAFSA enrolling in college.

HARI SREENIVASAN: And it’s also interesting that there are multiple things. It’s not just family income that figures out what kind of aid you get.

KIM COOK: Right.

So, income obviously plays a significant role, but the number in college, whether your family qualifies for other federal means-tested benefits, where you go to college, so, many, many factors factor in. The key message that we want to get across and is part of a national FAFSA completion campaign that NCAN is kicking off called Form Your Future, is that this is your first step to going to college.

All students should complete the FAFSA and get the money for which they’re eligible.

HARI SREENIVASAN: And even whether the type of household that you’re in, what kind of siblings, if you have other siblings in school, are all factors.

KIM COOK: Exactly. Exactly. Number in household, number in college, all of those factors come into play.

So, we don’t want any students to rule themselves out. We want all students to complete that FAFSA to get that money that has been left on the table.

HARI SREENIVASAN: All right, Kim Cook, thanks so much.

KIM COOK: Thank you.

The post FAFSA makes changes, hoping more students will utilize funds appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

As Eduardo Garcia worked on his college applications, there were several clues he had some extra help. There were multiple notes in the margins of his online document from a coach, and he said he and his mother were done already with their financial aid forms.

The help largely came from Breakthrough New York, a nonprofit group that helps low-income teens with strong academic skills get into good high schools and colleges. When he was selected in the sixth grade, Garcia started attending summer classes and, with Breakthrough's help, transferred from a local charter school to St. Raymond's High School for Boys, a Catholic school in the Parkchester section of the Bronx.

The Mott Haven resident said he wanted to get into a good college, go on to medical school, and never look back. His neighborhood is gentrifying, but remains very poor. And he's one of the lucky few in terms of education: the high school graduation rate for public schools in the South Bronx is just 56 percent; fewer than half of all graduates in 2015 went on to college. Both statistics are among the lowest in the city. 

In his college essay, Garcia wrote about being a translator for his Dominican-born mother, not just switching between English and Spanish but also mastering medical terminology related to her heart and neurological problems.

"Researching all of her conditions and the professions that treat them has inspired me to want to pursue a profession in the medical field and become a physician in the future," he read from his laptop.

Eduardo Garcia with his mother, Yocasta Martinez, on their block in Mott Haven where new apartment buildings are rising.

(Beth Fertig/WNYC)

This fall, Garcia was nominated by Breakthrough for a Posse Scholarship. He is in the running for a full-tuition scholarship to Depauw University in Indiana. If he got it, he may not apply to any other schools - even though he'd prefer to be closer to home. His mother said that was okay. She wanted to save the loans for medical school.

"If you can have a bachelor's for free, even if it's in Indiana, you need to go to Indiana," said Martinez, who noted it was a 12-hour drive from the Bronx.

Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

BOSTON — Families applying for federal student aid are facing extra hurdles this year after a potential data breach led federal officials to remove an online tool that smoothed the process.

The Education Department and the Internal Revenue Service said Thursday that an online service known as the Data Retrieval Tool will stay offline for the rest of this application season. In the past, families could use the tool to import their tax information automatically to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, a complex form needed to get federal aid.

Now families filing the form will have to fill out their tax information manually using old tax returns, an obstacle that some education experts fear will deter families from filing.

“It’s not impossible, but it it’s going to make it more difficult,” said Justin Draeger, president and chief executive of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. “Not everybody has access to their prior year’s return.”

Federal officials unexpectedly removed the online tool in early March, at a time when many families across the U.S. were applying for aid. The IRS later said they shut it down because identity thieves may have used personal information “obtained outside the tax system” to access the online tool in an attempt to steal further data.

Identity thieves could use that information to generate fake tax returns and claim the tax refunds. The IRS said it’s still trying to determine how many taxpayers might have been affected, but added that the agency had already stopped some questionable tax returns that were filed by users who accessed the tool.

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen acknowledged the inconvenience, but said the agency couldn’t risk the safety of taxpayer data.

“Protecting taxpayer data has to be the highest priority, and we will continue working with (the Education Department office that handles student aid) to bring this tool back in a safe and secure manner,” Koskinen said in a statement.

For families that don’t have copies of their tax returns, the IRS suggests trying to retrieve the documents from their tax preparers or the software they used to file it. If needed, the IRS can also provide a tax transcript that includes a summary of previously filed tax returns.

The tool’s absence could cause extra work for colleges, too. The IRS routinely asks campuses to verify the tax information on the form from certain students as a security measure. In the past, students who didn’t use the online tool were more likely to be selected for extra verification, Draeger said. Some colleges have already noticed an increase in verification requests this year.

“If nobody is using the IRS data retrieval tool, it’s unclear whether this is going to throw a wrench into their income verification modeling,” Draeger said.

Federal officials say the data tool will remain offline until the start of the next FAFSA season, which typically begins Oct. 1.

READ MORE: Affordable options for college students are disappearing fast

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SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher says cuts to programs that help disadvantaged high school students gain the opportunity to attend college, as well as reductions to federal college aid, would have a huge negative impact on New York’s colleges.

"It would have a devastating effect on access, and access leads to completion, leads to workforce development, and leads to economic success. That's the whole issue here that is at stake, and I think that's exactly what will be debated by the Congress," said Zimpher.

Zimpher spoke to public radio and television as she ends an eight-year term as the head of one the nation’s largest university systems next month.

Illustration by enisaksoy/Getty Images

Student loan debt in the U.S. stands at $1.3 trillion, leading many Americans to doubt whether or not college is worth it.

In 2015, students who graduated from a public or nonprofit college had an average debt of $30,100.

For those pursuing a college degree, 41 percent of students did not complete their degree in six years. Socioeconomics and demographics play a significant role in whether or not students complete college and those who are disproportionately likely to be behind in their student loan payments.

How did we get to this point? What should lawmakers, lenders and colleges do to help students deal with crushing debt?

To dig into the student debt crisis and explore new funding models, join the PBS NewsHour (@NewsHour) for a Twitter chat at 1 p.m. ET on Thursday, Aug. 24, along with the following education experts on student debt: Ted Malone, executive director of the Purdue Division of Financial Aid (@TedMalone2); Natalia Abrams, executive director of StudentDebtCrisis.org (@debtcrisisorg); Ben Miller, senior director for postsecondary education at the Center for American Progress (@EduBenM); and Jon Marcus of The Hechinger Report (@JonMarcusBoston).

Have questions or comments? We want to hear them. Join in the conversation at 1 p.m. EDT Aug. 24 using #NewsHourChats.

The post Twitter chat: How do we solve the student debt crisis? appeared first on PBS NewsHour.

Across the country, universities are being criticized over issues of money: from how they spend their endowments, to how they raise tuition, to how they award financial aid. Many students are feeling the pinch. They’re going into debt to pay for their education, or abandoning their dreams of a college degree altogether. This week on Reveal, we take a look at the bottom line for universities and students.

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To explore more reporting, visit revealnews.org or find us on fb.com/ThisIsReveal, Twitter @reveal or Instagram @revealnews.

Tom Suozzi, U.S. Representative for NY's 3rd District, an area that includes parts of Long Island and Queens, NY, and member of the House Committee on Ways and Means talks about the Trump Administration's financial aid package to mitigate the economic impact of COVID-19 and how his district is responding to the pandemic.

New York, NY —

Pell grants for college are worth more now that President Barack Obama has signed the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act. The grants are worth more than $5,500 this fall. That's an increase of $200 from this year.

At the State University of New York in Binghamton, where tuition, room and board are now more than $20,000 dollars a year, financial services director Dennis Chavez says that extra aid will definitely help.

"One of the things we've been seeing more and more is the burden for paying for college is being done on the backs of students, in terms of student loans or parent loans," Chavez says.

Chavez says about 25 percent of Binghamton's undergrads get Pell grants. Extra money for the grants will be funded through savings on college loans, through a switch to direct federal lending.

As prospective college students weigh their financial aid packages, Ron Lieber, New York Times "Your Money" columnist and author of several books, including The Price You Pay for College (Harper, 2021), joins to discuss ways to negotiate for better tuition.

On today's show:

• The Fire Department said that 16 people were injured after a shooting on a subway platform in Brooklyn on Tuesday morning.  Stephen Nessen, WNYC transportation reporter joins with the latest news.
• New York City Comptroller Brad Lander talks about his first 100 days in office, including his accomplishments and priorities, and reacts to the news of the shooting on a rush-hour subway train.
• Leana Wen, MD, emergency physician, professor at George Washington University, contributing columnist for The Washington Post, CNN medical analyst, former Baltimore Health Commissioner and the author of Lifelines: A Doctor's Journey in the Fight for Public Health (Metropolitan Books, 2021), discusses how people should calculate their risks as they go about their lives, more than two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, and talks about the uptick in cases among well-known people in New York and Washington, D.C., the availability of COVID drugs and other related topics.
• As prospective college students weigh their financial aid packages, Ron Lieber, New York Times "Your Money" columnist and author of several books, including The Price You Pay for College (Harper, 2021), joins to discuss ways to negotiate for better tuition.

Transcripts are posted to each segment as soon as they are available.

On today's show: 

• Amber Phillips, Washington Post political reporter and author of "The 5-Minute Fix" newsletter, breaks down the results of the Iowa caucuses, and what they signal about how GOP voters are feeling and the election year ahead.

• After New York Governor Kathy Hochul and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy gave their State of the State addresses last week, Marie French, reporter who covers energy and the environment for POLITICO New York, and Ry Rivard, reporter who covers energy, the environment and transportation in New Jersey for Politico, break down how both governors plan to mitigate the impacts of the climate crisis in their states.

• Michele Norris, Washington Post columnist, host of the podcast "Your Mama's Kitchen," former cohost of NPR’s All Things Considered and the author of Our Hidden Conversations: What Americans Really Think about Race and Identity (Simon & Schuster, 2024), talks about her new book that builds on the over half a million submissions to Race Card Project which invited people to submit six words that summed up their story about race.

• In 2020, Congress ordered a simplification of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which rolled out recently. Ron Lieber, the "Your Money" columnist for The New York Times, breaks down what happened when he filled out the FAFSA for his college-aged child and whether the process really is simplified.